Re: really big question

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Dino Guy Ralph (ralph.miller@alumni.usc.edu) wrote:


<Thus far, the best evidence for tubercular integument in theropods occurs
on _Carnotaurus_ and (according to an abstract in last year's SVP meeting 
volume) _Allosaurus_.  No coelurosaur is known to have sported such a
pelt. If you accept that ornithomimids were coelurosaurs no more basal
than compsognathids, then you must conclude that it is probable that they,
too,  were feathered.>

  The holotype specimen of *Scansoriopteryx* shows a tail with tubercular,
roughly rhomboid scales on a patch of the tail, preserved as impressions,
leading some (including myself) to hypothesize that the tail lacked
feathery integument at least on one portion (like scaly-tailed squirrels)
or all of it (like in muroid rodents). In addition, "Dave" sports
scutellate scales on the pes, similar to those few non-dinosaurian,
non-pterosaurian reptiles recovered from the Yixian. 

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


        
                
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